Songs that Sound Like Other Songs

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Kelly Clarkson vs. Beyoncé vs. Christina Perri vs. Jessie J

Ever since Beyoncé released “Halo” in 2008 I thought it sounded like something else. Then I discovered this Kelly Clarkson thing with her track “Already Gone” (2009). Clarkson accused her own co-writer (and OneRepublic frontman) Ryan Tedder of using the same music as “Halo” which he also co-wrote. But wait, there’s more! What’s going on with Christina Perri‘s “Jar of Hearts” (2012)? Doesn’t it also sound like “Halo”?

Kelly Clarkson unsuccessfully fought her record label not to release “Already Gone” as the third single off her new album, as the music is the same as the music from Beyonce’s hit “Halo.”

Clarkson co-wrote the lyrics and was provided the track by producer Ryan Tedder who had, unbeknownst to her, given the same track to Beyonce. By the time Clarkson heard Halo and realized what had happened, her album had printed and shipped and it was too late to omit the track. – Huffington Post

Beyonce is known to steal writing credits from other artists. She is also known to steal entire creative vision for her videos from other artists. I’m surprised she hasn’t been outted in a major way yet.

Lovely Luke has done a few songs like Price Tag, basically they all recycle the chord sequence from Jason Mraz’s already ubiquitous “I’m Yours”. Katy’s “The One That Got Away” is another and there’s one on the Ke$ha album which sounds quite a lot like Teenage Dream in parts anyway. I really dislike Jessie J, the Katy soundalike Domino is alright but the smug, hectoring Price Tag is just vile.

NB: The poster above Haasey is onto something but I think they got the songs mixed up for the second example: Material Girl steals the bassline of The Jacksons “Can You Feel It”, Like a Virgin does sound somewhat like Billie Jean and she did the two as a medley in concert. I never noticed that opening riff similarity but it’s probably there as well!

Well of course but this progression suddenly turned up in loads of songs after Mraz’s phenomenal commercial success – record longevity in charts, one of the biggest selling downloads ever. Hey Soul Sister being the most obvious to be inspired from it but that also takes from soul sister Alicia Keys ‘No One’. Coincidence? Methinks not.

People got to get their inspiration from somewhere and one tactic is often to take elements from a recent hit as the hook sticks in people’s brains more. If ya gonna reduce everything down to chord progressions there’s no point in this site.

Agreed. It’s not always about the standard four-chords (there are a million variations with just those alone!) but really glaring when huge pop hits are sounding more and more alike. I feel like these ideas would stem from more obscure hooks but these days it doesn’t seem uncommon to hear two huge artists release very similar sounding music within a year of each other. It’s also not surprising to see that a lot of these artists are being produced by the same circle of people a good deal of the time.

Songs used that same chord progression long before I’m Yours; it developed from what was known of the ’50s/doo-wop progression, and probably back further, some suggesting the progression was based on that of Pachelbel’s Canon.

In pop music, sometimes a Classical piece has been set to lyrics, maybe more than once, so I don’t generally consider two songs to be the same song unless they have the same melody (of a variation of it, like a Theme and Variation is common in Classical music) and the same lyrics.